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Want to watch movies on the big screen but don’t want to leave your couch? A home theater projector set up might be the solution you’re looking for.

With recent improvements in home theater technology, getting a high-quality picture in the comfort of your living room has never been easier.

If you’re worried about the difficulty of a home theater projector set up, don’t be. The process is easier than you think, and you don’t have to be a trained technician to do it well.

With a few tools and a little know-how, you could be up and running in no time.

Keep reading for some quick and easy tips on home theater projector set up.

Getting started–what you’ll need for your home theater projector set up

Before you get started, you’re going to need a projector. I know it sounds pretty obvious, but choosing a projector is the first step in the process.

Once you have your hardware picked out, you’ll only need a few hand tools to get your home theater projector set up. At the minimum, you’ll probably need:

A screwdriver

Drill

Adjustable wrench

Level

Also, be sure to check the instructions for your projector and mount for the manufacturer’s requirements.

Where to put the most important piece–the screen

Once you’ve picked a projector, it’s time to find a good place for the screen.

There are obviously some size considerations to take into account when selecting a location for a projector screen. It’s not quite as easy as picking a spot for your TV.

Most rooms are only going to provide you with one or two walls suitable for screen placement, so picking a wall is probably not a tough choice. But if you can, try to avoid a wall with a lot of direct light, as the light could wash out your picture.

One element you do need to consider is how far up the wall should you place the screen. Somewhere between 24 and 36 inches from the floor is typically a good distance. The installation instructions for your screen may also provide placement guidelines.

Buying a home projector sounds easy at first: You get a screen, you get a projector, you aim it at the screen – and presto, theater-like movie time! But reality quickly teaches us that home projectors are very cool, but also a little complicated. They don’t follow the same rules as TV screens, and they have extra features to consider and choose between.

So before jumping in, here are six of the most important things to note when looking for the absolute best home theater projector.

High Resolution: Resolution is a little trickier with projectors, because they use a variety of methods when it comes to video production. However, you can generally count on the resolution that you see in the specs, as long as the image is sized properly. Try not to get anything that falls below full HD (1080p). There are some projectors – a growing corner of the market – that are offering 4K resolution as well, but these will be much more expensive.

Lamp: The lamp, unsurprisingly, is one of the most important features in a home projector. First, it defines how bright your image will be based on the number of lumens. The more lumens, the clearer and more realistic the image tends to be – a couple thousand lumens, at least, will be needed during the day time. Also pay attention to the lamp life: The lamp will lose brightness throughout its life, but the lamp life spec shows how long it takes to reach half its original brightness – you may decide to replace it before then to maintain image quality. It typically costs a few hundred dollars to replace a lamp.

Sizing: Most home projectors give you an option to size your image to fit your screen or your desired size. Even simple models have suggestions on how far away (throw distance) you need to place the projector to get images of a certain quality or size. That’s very handy to know, but because you need to match the sizing of your projector with how much space you have. In other words, think very carefully about how large an image you want, and do a lot of measuring of the room where you are installing the projector – before you buy. Use this calculator to make an informed decision.

Quiet: Not many homeowners think about the noise levels of their projector until it’s too late. A projector that has been on for a while can be quite loud due to fan noise. When you’re trying to watch a movie, that can become distracting and annoying. Some projectors are far better at containing their noise than others, so research this before you buy.

Contrast: Contrast is a very difficult spec to quantify, because it can work in many different ways and there’s no set standard to measure it. However, it’s very important for top projector quality. You want your projector to produce bright whites and dark blacks to help make the image look realistic and not like – well, a projection. Some projectors have different contrast modes for different light levels as well.

Connections: This is a basic but vital part of the best projector experience – you need connections that match the content devices that you use. A very popular option is wireless HDMI, which means you don’t have to worry about dragging cables across the room and can use all your HDMI devices. However, this also tends to be one of the most expensive connections. If you want to save money, go with a wired connection but make sure it matches your devices. HDMI remains a good bet here.

With the new Optoma HD50 home theater projector, Optoma continues a trend of delivering low-cost, high quality projectors to consumers. While other Optoma projectors seem to best be labelled as family room models, the HD50 steps up the image quality by delivering a Full HD 1920×1080 image with 3D support, and an RGBRGB color wheel that is sure to impress.

Coming in at a $1,599 street price, the HD50 offers more than any of their lower priced models, including a 50,000:1 contrast rating, 1.5x zoom range and vertical lens shift, and some system options like PureMotion (frame interpolation), and a full Color Management System that may make it perfect for your home theater setup.

Viewing Experience

When the projector first came on, it was clear that a bit of adjustment was going to be necessary. The image appeared artificial with over blown colors and brightness that was artificially high. Switching between the seven different color modes that include Cinema, Reference, Vivid, Bright, Game, 3D, and User, it was determined that Reference really did deliver the reference settings.

Some time was spent with the Blu-ray Disney WOW! calibration disc and only minimal changes were made to the reference setting to get a overall solid image on screen from the HD50. Colors appeared accurate and well saturated on the large 161″ test screen that was being used. There wasn’t a time when extra light output was desired, and the image didn’t appear muddied when scenes got darker.

An early viewing experience of ice hockey really played to the strengths of DLP technology and the HD50 delivered the goods. A small black puck zipping around on a white background can be a nightmare for those who are sensitive to DLP rainbows. Not only were there no rainbows jumping across the screen, but the fast paced action of hockey was matched by the HD50 with sharp detail, with the white ice having good on-screen pop, and the black puck travelling cleanly across the screen. Even with a few lights turned on, the HD50 held up nicely and the game was still very watchable.

Sitting down to watch a few movies once it was calibrated, the Optoma was out to impress. The image delivered by the HD50 for movie viewing is perhaps the best on the market at its price range. It delivered excellent image quality with colors that were smooth and accurate. No hints of false contouring were present and movies such as The Avengers delivered smooth color gradations, without appearing to be over saturated or lacking. The skin tones were very good, avoiding a lean towards yellow or green bias.

Certainly, the black levels were not as impressive as the higher priced models out there, but the lack of inky blacks wasn’t a distraction to the viewing experience in any way. The image allowed for true submersion into the movie. So, instead of watching a projector, and finding faults, it was easy to get lost in the story that was unfolding. The unparalleled sharpness of single chip DLP projectors rung true with this model as fine details in sharp scenes stood out with impeccable precision. The HD50 allowed for an enjoyable movie viewing experience from start to end.

3D, using the included Optoma 3D glasses and VESA emitter, was a breeze to use. The 3D glasses didn’t come charged, but a USB cable was included and after a few hours of charging, the simple on-off switch, instead of a more typical push-button, allowed for the glasses to be utilized. A bit of menu surfing into the 3D setup allowed for a choice between VESA, DLP Link, or Off, as choices for 3D operation. After VESA 3D was enabled, the Blu-ray player immediately started playback and the glasses had no issues whatsoever with syncing up and working very well. To test the other options, DLP Link was enabled for 3D, and a set of very well regarded eStar 3D glasses were put to use and they seemed to actually look better than the Optoma glasses. The eStar glasses maintained better separation between the two halves of the image with better overall contrast and no visible color bias. For those who consider 3D an important part of their viewing experience, the HD50 did an impressive job overall.

Home theater projectors have advance rapidly in quality over the last decade while prices have plummeted. Inexpensive home theater projectors are better than ever and some of them are terrific. So it’s time to ask an obvious question: how do today’s moderately priced home theater projectors compare to the expensive high-end brands?

We’ve got two projectors on hand that created a fascinating side by side comparison–the Runco XtremeProjection X200i and the Epson Pro Cinema 6030UB. Runco’s X-200i is a premium DLP-based home theater projector priced at $14,999 including a standard lens. The Epson Pro Cinema 6030UB at $3,499 is not in the same league pricewise, but we could not resist the temptation to put the 6030UB up against the Runco X200i to see how it would fare against a (presumably) much more substantial product.

Some important comments on set up

The Runco X-200i is very bright as home theater projectors go. It is rated at 1430 ANSI lumens when fully video-optimized in its lowest light output configuration, and we measured ours at 1378 lumens. It doesn’t have any dimmer operating modes, and no eco-mode to reduce lamp power. Realistically, the X-200i is made for larger than average home theaters with screen sizes in the 150″ to 180″ diagonal range.

The first step in any side-by-side picture quality evaluation is to equalize two things–the projected image size and the average light level on the screen. Since the X-200i won’t go any dimmer than almost 1400 lumens, the Epson 6030UB must be put into its bright Living Room mode which also puts out about 1400 lumens when the lens is at wide angle. (Note: All of the 6030UB’s optimized theater modes–Cinema, THX, B&W Cinema, and Natural, are programmed to output around 800 lumens. Using any of them against the X-200i will cause the 6030UB to look quite dim by comparison.)

Another important factor in setting up this test was the impact of the 6030UB’s zoom lens on its light output. The 6030UB has a long 2.1x zoom lens compared to the X-200i’s 1.3x lens. From any given throw distance, the 6030UB will throw both a smaller and a much larger picture than the X-200i is capable of. So it’s easy to use the 6030UB’s zoom to match the image size to anything the X-200i is producing. However, if you go too far from the wide-angle end of the lens on the 6030UB, it begins to curtail light output. At the midpoint of the zoom lens, you’ve lost 20% of the projector’s light potential. That means Living Room mode, which is about 1400 lumens at wide angle, is about 1100 lumens at the lens midpoint. That is enough to make the 6030UB’s image look less vibrant as compared to the X-200i.

The bottom line is that if the projectors are placed in the same rack at the same distance from the screen, the 6030UB at wide angle will project an image that is much too large for the comparison. So it is necessary to place the 6030UB closer to the screen to allow the use of the wide-angle end of the zoom. In our testing, we projected two 5-foot wide images side by side on a 10.5 foot wide Stewart Studiotek 100. The Runco X-200i was 11 feet from the screen, and the Epson 6030UB was 8 feet from the screen. With this set up we were able to achieve parity in both image size and image brightness.

This year’s CEDIA trade show in Denver saw Epson refresh its entire home theater projector line. The Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 5030UB is this year’s upgrade to the Home Cinema 5020UB, one of last year’s hottest projectors. While the 5030UB is in many ways an incremental improvement over its predecessor, it is an impressive machine in its own right.

The Home Cinema 5030UB is one of three new home theater projectors released at this year’s CEDIA show. The others, the Pro Cinema 4030 and Pro Cinema 6030UB, are restricted-distribution products sold through specialized dealers and custom installers. The Home Cinema 5030UB, on the other hand, is in open distribution — meaning you can find it at a number of authorized resellers online. Currently priced at $2,599 from authorized sellers, the Home Cinema 5030UB is an excellent value in today’s market.

The Viewing Experience

While the projector is laden with features that make it easy to install and use, the primary draw of the Home Cinema 5030UB is image quality. The 5030UB’s image in both 2D and 3D is the best we’ve ever seen from Epson, and the picture on screen makes it clear where every single dollar of the projector’s purchase price went. In other words, it looks more expensive than it actually is.

The Home Cinema 5030UB is built primarily for use in a light-controlled home theater environment, and it is tailored to deliver maximum impact in such a situation. The “UB” in the projector’s name stands for Ultra Black, a designation that does not disappoint once you have the projector properly configured. For part of this review we set up the 5030UB on one of Stewart’s new screens, the Cima by Stewart Filmscreen using the 1.1-gain Neve white fabric. This screen is a superb complement to the 5030B for dedicated home theater, and it costs less than the Studiotek 130. The 5030UB already has very deep black levels and light output is highly adjustable, so this neutral white screen with low gain and a very wide 80-degree half-gain angle is ideal for dark theater installations.

In 2D, the 5030UB’s image is smooth and life-like. Highlights are bright, but not blown out, while shadow detail is excellent and overall dynamic range makes the image appear three-dimensional. Black level, which has long been the strong point of Epson’s home theater projectors, is as deep as it has ever been once the projector’s automatic iris is turned on. The Home Cinema 5030UB shares the color performance of its predecessors, with good color saturation and comprehensive color adjustment controls. The projector’s factory configurations need a little bit of fine-tuning, but this isn’t unusual in home theater projectors.

The 5030UB produces a bright, engaging 3D image that makes large-screen 3D display attainable. The projector has three dedicated 3D color modes that can be fine-tuned independently of their 2D counterparts. Bright, well-saturated colors and good shadow detail make 3D viewing a pleasant experience, even for this jaded reviewer.

If you still watch a lot of standard-definition content, technologies like Frame Interpolation and Super Resolution improve image quality and give new life to your DVD collection. And while no amount of image processing can turn SD into HD, the Home Cinema 5030UB can clean up standard-definition material enough to make it easier on your eyes, now that you’re used to high definition.